Back home in Georgia, they call him Bobo. It’s where Demaryius Thomas’ jagged life and football future began to take shape.

His story is unlike most of his peers: Both his mother, Katina Smith, and grandmother, Minnie Pearl Thomas, are in federal prison serving heavy time for drug convictions. His mother has a 20-year sentence and Thomas’ grandmother was sentenced to life behind bars, both for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Thomas was only an 11-year-old kid when they were taken to prison. Both women are in Tallahassee, Fla. He says they are, not surprisingly, very excited that he’s playing in the Super Bowl.

“My momma, she just told me, ‘I told you you would make it,’ We haven’t really talked about it much but I talked to my grandma and she said the same thing,” Thomas said during Tuesday’s Super Bowl Media Day. “She got emotional and all, but they just said, ‘You were going to make it.’”

He said both his mother and grandmother would be allowed to watch the game, as they do all every Sunday, and they have No. 88 T-shirts to support the team.

“It will be a bittersweet situation,” Smith told ESPN on Monday. “Sweet that my son made it to this point, and bitter that I’m not there to celebrate this time in his life.”

According to ESPN, Smith has the prospect of being released to a halfway house on Dec. 25, 2016. Thomas’ grandmother, who is 57, has three drug convictions and was the primary maker and seller of crack cocaine.

Thomas, whose father was in the Army, was raised by his aunt and uncle. He says knowing that they are watching and backing him is a source of motivation.

“I don’t want to sound too boastful, but I’m a very proud mother,” Smith said. “He had the choice of taking the wrong path or the right path, and he chose the right path even though he had all those negative situations around him.”